TV footage of the bunker’s inner workings has humanised the process but Saturday’s final showed how the bunker is steering rather than contributing to the game.
And as the game became more stop-start, the players came more and more to live and breathe on these off-field officials’ input, rather than the man in the middle.
The game did not flow. Both sides played a highly physical brand of rugby but even so, more rugby could have been played.
The TMO should have to have a real reason to speak to the referee. He ought not constantly be confirming this or that matter of fact.
And while the referee in the middle can initiate a check, he and the game might be better served if he made a mistake or two. Even bad blues by the man in the middle might even themselves out if he were allowed to run his own game.
My attitude to referee Wayne Barnes has changed over time. A man doesn’t get to where Barnes is or stay there for long if he’s hopeless. He is more composed these days and his tone with the captains strikes the right chord now.
He admitted at one stage to having made a mistake. Yet, irrespective of what appears to be the etiquette, choosing not to change his ruling was unsatisfactory.
Whether it’s the grounding of the ball for a try or the awarding of a penalty, common-sense suggests if you’re going to admit to having erred, then you ought to change the call.
In a game of that magnitude, he would have been applauded by right-thinking rugby people for it, especially as he said, “I didn’t see the replay. I thought you stayed on him. I didn’t think you’d come off enough.”
I thought?
Referees make split-second calls at all levels. At RWC level, they get to revisit them but that can, as here, have the effect of casting doubt on the referee as a decision-maker.
He who makes calls on a Saturday afternoon without recourse to a replay makes a decision, right or wrong.
Professional rugby has used this technology for some time now but what we saw on Sunday cannot be the way forward.
That Sam Cane was yellow-carded for the uppish tackle on Jesse Kriel, most fair-minded people would accept that.
That it was upgraded after the fact is wrong. Had it been a deliberate cheap shot, no problem. It wasn’t.
For red-card offences, there should be an element of intent and that has to be the determining factor.
Neither Cane or his Springbok counterpart Siya Kolisi deserved a red card. Kolisi didn’t get one; Cane ought not to have.
Again ,had Barnes not had replays available, his experience and judgement would have gotten him through it. Cane would have returned, having served the 10 minutes.
As Cane had not gone out maliciously to hit Kriel high, neither did All Black loose forward Shannon Frizell mean to “hobble” Bongi Mbonambi. For an awful moment the concern was that his yellow card would be turned red. He must have been fearful.
Setting aside the result, the unhappiness around the game stems from the fact it never got going, which was more about the way it was run, rather than the players themselves.
It wasn’t just about one decision — however grievous it was for a national captain in his biggest-ever game. It was about whether we need or want one of the world’s top refs being second-guessed or “steered” . . . the TMO becoming the authority.
Rugby is not gridiron.
It would not benefit from becoming more like it if Sunday’s final was a glimpse of that.
